In recent years, the use of advanced composite structures has experienced tremendous growth in the aerospace, automotive, and many other commercial industries. While composite materials offer significant improvements in performance, they require strict quality control procedures in both the manufacturing processes and after the materials are in service in finished products. Specifically, non-destructive evaluation (NDE) methods must assess the structural integrity of composite materials. Proper assessment demands the ability to detect inclusions, delaminations and porosities both at the near surface region and deep internal region.
Various methods and apparatuses have been proposed to assess the structural integrity of composite structures. One solution uses an ultrasonic source to generate ultrasonic surface displacements in target materials. The ultrasonic surface displacements are then measured and analyzed. The source of the ultrasound may be a pulsed generation laser beam directed at the target. Laser light from a separate detection laser is scattered by ultrasonic surface displacements at the work piece. Then collection optics collect the scattered laser energy. The collection optics are coupled to an interferometer or other device, and data about the structural integrity of the composite structure can be obtained through analysis of the scattered laser energy. Laser ultrasound has been shown to be very effective for the inspection of parts during the manufacturing process.
Typically, a laser source produces sound by thermal expansion at a localized spot on the surface while a probe laser beam, coupled to an interferometer, detects surface displacements or velocity. The thermal expansion due to the absorption of the generation laser produces a displacement that is demodulated by the laser-ultrasound detection system resulting in a pulse at the beginning of the laser-ultrasound signal. This echo is commonly called surface echo. The surface echo may mask any echo produced by a defect near the sample surface. The duration of the surface echo depends on the generation laser pulse duration and on the frequency bandwidth of the detection system. Typically, with a CO2 generation laser and a confocal Fabry-Perot for detection, the surface echo might last up to a few microseconds. Thus any defect that would produce an echo during that time might be masked. For this reason, Laser-ultrasound inspection is sensitive to deep internal defects and less sensitive to near-surface defect.
Transient infrared (IR) thermography, another NDE method, does not efficiently allow for the inspection of polymer-matrix composites due to its insensitivity to defects deeper than a few mm's in polymer-matrix parts.